Monday, May 28, 2012

Daniel Buren may be the most conventionally successful of the BMPT gang, mounting very serious, large-scale installations around the world over the past few decades (he appears to have a pretty grandiose one at the Grand Palais in Paris for Monumenta at the moment), but it's Olivier Mosset who seems to be having the most fun, doing handsome exhibitions at Leo Koening and Mary Boone while also regularly popping up in fun and unusualgroupshows. (As for the other BMPT guys, Michel Parmentier passed away in 2000, and Niele Toroni has kept a fairly low profile, at least beyond Europe, though Grand Openings gave him a nice tribute last summer.)

Two Sundays ago, one of his bikes—check out the Arizona licence plate—appeared at the newly christened Shoot the Lobster - Brighton Beach, at 425 Oceanview Avenue, the latest outpost of Martos Gallery's project space, which is headquartered on West 29th Street but has also done shows in Miami.

Billed as a three-person affair with Olivier Mosset, Jeffrey Schad, and Vincent Szarek, the exhibition actually consisted of only that bike. All three of the artists were responsible for it. Schad handled the work on its mechanics and Szarek did a really subtle paint job that looked a delicate, intricate bit of lace along the top of the bike. Classy work. (Shoot the Lobster has great photos.)

One more Mosset biking note: an old Spencer Brownstone press release notes that Mosset can be seen in Downtown 81 "making a drive-by salutation to Jean-Michel Basquiat," so look out for that the next time you wach it. (Sadly, Netflix isn't streaming it anymore.)